CNN revealed that Labor Secretary Marty Walsh was a “designated survivor” during President Joe Biden's second State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
The selection comes on the same day that CNN reported that Walsh is expected to leave the Biden administration soon, marking the first departure of a Cabinet minister of the Biden presidency.
Biden's speech will be delivered on the House floor, in front of nearly every influential federal official in Washington including members of Congress, senior military officers, U.S. Supreme Court justices and senior officials within his administration.
Walsh is the first Labor minister to be absent as the president's successor
Walsh, a key member of Biden's economic team, is the first labor secretary in American history to participate in the mysterious rituals that take place with the aim of preserving the president's succession in the event of a disaster.
Last year, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was the designated survivor of Biden's first State of the Union address, retreating from the Capitol to a safe, undisclosed location during the president's prime-time remarks.
According to the National Constitution Center, the tradition of designating a survivor during the State of the Union address began in the 1950s as a result of fears of a nuclear attack during the Cold War.
But the federal government did not publicly announce the designated survivor until 1981, when Terrell Bell, Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan, made the appointment to address a joint session of Congress.
When was the idea of presidential succession adopted?
The idea of presidential succession was established in the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, then updated during the Truman administration in the Presidential Succession Act of 1947.
The updated line of succession was prompted by the death of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, which resulted in Harry Truman assuming the highest office.
After the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and Defense are next in line of succession.
Data analyzed by CNN show that the attorney general, seventh in the line of succession, was the highest-ranking member of the Cabinet known to have been appointed a survivor, and the head of the Justice Department had been chosen for the role three times.
The Ministers of the Interior and Agriculture are the most survivors
The Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture are associated with the most frequent Survivor appointments, with seven appointments each, and while they are further down the line of succession, no Secretary of Education is known to have been a Survivor appointee.
While many of the appointments are politically mixed, the three survivors appointed who were VA secretaries served in that position under Republican presidents.
This was the Democrats' choices for the surviving ministers
Conversely, Democratic presidents were the only ones to appoint their secretaries from Health and Human Services, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Homeland Security to serve as survivor designees during the State of the Union address.
Although not as well known, the National Constitution Center notes that designated survivors have also been used during inaugurations and presidential speeches in joint sessions of Congress, and members of Congress have also been designated to skip the State of the Union as a precaution, according to the center.
What are the qualifications of Minister Al-Naji?
The designated survivor must be qualified to be chief, and if a higher-ranking successor survives a potential incident, that person becomes chief.
Acting Cabinet secretaries are eligible for the line of succession if they are confirmed by the Senate to hold other positions, according to 2003 congressional testimony from John Fortier, executive director of the Continuity of Government Committee.
But naturalized US citizens, such as current Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, are ineligible to serve as president and therefore cannot be designated survivors.
Most designated survivors, like Raimondo, keep a regular schedule while avoiding the Capitol for the president's speech.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said last year that her role as designated survivor was “quite uneventful,” staying out of Washington “but doing my job like any other day.”
#Designated #Survivor.. #minister #absent #State #Union